Exploring the Uses of Marketing Automation in the Travel Industry

Marketing automation has made a significant impact on most modern-day businesses, and the travel industry is no exception. It is a system that creates a bridge between a business’s marketing and sales efforts. In the current economy, where cut-throat competition to seize a limited audience exists, integrating Marketing Automation has become a must for businesses in the travel industry.

The travel industry is one of the most competitive ones out there. The survival of Niche agencies depends on their access to the best deals, reaching new customers, offering unique services, and competitive pricing. While small businesses and startups have to rely on the efficiency and convenience of their digital infrastructure. In this regard, Marketing automation can play a vital role by enabling travel and tour businesses to reach clients more effectively.

Marketing Automation heavily emphasises the way a product is being marketed and how it is being communicated to the target audiences. Travellers prefer services that are fast, smooth, and customisable. To address these preferences and to save time, human resources and additional expenses, many travel companies have invested big bucks in machine learning, smart interfaces and several other cutting-edge technologies.

Innovative technologies, like Marketing Automation, have successfully improved customer loyalty and experience by complying with customer needs and creating a medium for personalized communication. It uses information collected from customers’ search history, likes, comments, etc. to create attractive travel packages. The more an offer aligns with the customers’ needs, the more they are inclined to purchase them and later recommend it to others. This can help a company implement effective customer lifecycle management by understanding and addressing customers’ needs.

Over the last decade, the travel industry has witnessed a major surge in travel demands, for both leisure and corporate. And even before the pandemic, the travel industry was facing two main challenges preventing it from accommodating this rise in demand. One was the unpredictability of the future circumstances which affects the travel market, and the other was satisfying the needs of travellers during their journey.

It is the responsibility of all the major players in the travel industry to overcome these challenges, especially since almost 80% of travellers depend on technology to make their travel experience more convenient. By utilizing the tools of marketing automation, travel businesses can navigate the future of travel.

If you want to modernize and grow your online travel business in this saturated market, then you should contemplate employing marketing automation. And if you are still on the edge, then consider the many uses and benefits of Marketing Automation compiled below before coming to any conclusion. 

Boosting Revenue

Among the different kinds of losses businesses in the travel industry fall victim to, lost revenue is a significant one. Every business has gone through it. Some manage to overcome it and others succumb to it.

Back in 2020, during the global pandemic, the travel industry experienced a loss of $935 billion in revenue worldwide. This was the biggest recorded loss in the history of the modern travel industry. This led the businesses in this industry to dedicate more time and resources to revenue-generating marketing. This Revenue-generating marketing plays a significant role at each stage of the customer’s purchase cycle which includes the igniting of initial interest towards the product or service. And this should be consistently done with past, present and potential customers. When you observe and examine the overall process, there are so many factors to consider and even more campaigns to execute. And this is where Marketing Automation steps into the scene of the travel and tourism industry.  

The system generates a marketing strategy of how any product or service will be marketed and how they are being communicated to the target audiences after monitoring their behaviour across different social media platforms. It generates a profitable marketing strategy after analysing trends and opportunities in the travel and tourism sector. 

Thanks to this system, marketing agents can easily set up email and website automation to run in the background while placing their sole focus on their key strategic activities. For instance, they may use targeted and cross-sell campaigns, personalized content, and attractive promotions to lure in potential customers who are most likely to buy, resulting in an inevitable increase in sales.

Tracking the Booking Process

During the booking process, travel companies should keep track of the progress through each and every step to make it easier to review frequently. This tracking will let the company officials know whether their travel booking system is convenient for the travellers to navigate through and the number of customers who leave without completing the purchase.

According to a report by SaleCycle, the travel industry has the highest cart abandonment rate of 81.31%. And Integrating a booking process which is smooth sailing and makes the booking process immensely convenient for the customers is essential for travel businesses that suffer from high cart drop-out rates in the travel industry. Hence an automation tool is required to monitor the performance and users’ experience visiting the website or while using the app.

Through the use of automation tools, companies can figure out What went wrong during the booking process and what led to the users leaving without buying. Thus, it enables the developing team and agents to easily figure out the point of the problem and resolve it more efficiently and effectively.

Remarketing Through Brand Presence

Everyone affiliated with the client-service industry knows the value of brand presence. Brand presence or awareness is the level by which prospective customers remember and recognize a business. If a business manages to sustain a higher level of brand awareness, they are more likely to have and attract a wider range of audiences who know of their existence.

Any brand can spend a ton of its assets on marketing, but customers, or in this case travellers, often opt for the services of a brand that pops into their head first. For example, when an individual is looking to buy a new phone, they are more likely to buy one from Apple or Samsung or Nokia. And why is that? Although there are many phones out there with better features, and functionalities and are more affordable, they may not have a strong brand presence. Similarly, while booking a trip, travellers will always book with the first airline that comes to mind when they start their travel planning. This level of brand presence needs to be instilled into the customers through constant reminders of your existence, especially during the consideration process.

Want to keep your brand at the forefront of travellers? Then strategically utilising the power of remarketing is the optimal course of action. Suppose, a client quit halfway through their travel planning process. Now thanks to the combination of Remarketing and automation, you can trace this trail and show the clients a customised version of the exact product they were searching for maximum relevance. As a travel marketer, this strategy can be an important asset. It helps you to reach your target clients with the product they were specifically interested in and push the product through your brand.